A space telescope has spotted massive black holes that shoot jets of powerful gamma-ray radiation — the farthest than ever and dating back to the time when the universe was a mere one-tenth of its age today.
These distant blazars, or galaxies with such intense emissions powered by monster black holes, detected by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope surround the mystery of how black holes formed early in the history of the universe.
Awe-Inducing Findings
Astronomer Roopesh Ojha of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center presented the new findings at a media conference Jan. 30 during the American Physical Society meeting held in Washington.
“Despite their youth, these far-flung blazars host some of the most massive black holes known,” he said in a statement.
The light observed from the five distant objects left when the universe was only from 1.9 to 1.4 billion years in existence.
“[Y]ou arrive at the conclusion that they’re all home to really, really massive holes,” Ojha added, citing two enormous black holes that may as well be more than 1 billion solar masses.
In our galaxy, on the other hand, the supermassive black hole at the center maintains a mass of only 4 to 5 million times of the sun’s.
Blazing Blazars, Gamma Rays
Blazars are a fascination all their own. A blazar is a type of active galactic nuclei, a supermassive black hole occupying a galactic center with a huge disk of material surrounding it or outside the point of no return in black holes. It is the most active from Earthly perspective since the hyper-fast jets speed toward the planet at near-speed of light.
Blazars shine bright in all light forms, including gamma rays or the highest energy light.
Before these imposing presences were caught by the telescope, the most distant blazar imaged gave off its light when the universe was almost 2.1 billion years of age. A substantial update in the processing software enabled LAT to find even farther blazars — thanks to its increased sensitivity of around 40 percent, specifically at lower frequencies.
Now the pressing question: how did these massive black holes form in such a young universe? Scientists are still trying to probe the factors that led to their speedy development.
The team, in the meantime, seeks to continue its thorough search for more blazars, believing the Fermi telescope caught "just the tip of the iceberg."
Early this month, astronomers using NASA’s X-ray telescope Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array found two supermassive black holes lurking quite close to our galaxy. They discovered the bodies while focusing on a nearby galaxy known as IC 3639, which lies about 170 million light-years away, and NGC 1448, situated just about 38 million light-years away from Earth.
The two black holes stay in closer proximity to Earth than the black holes that the Chandra X-ray Observatory focused on and captured for an image with the highest collection of supermassive black holes that astronomers have so far detected.
In April 2015, Fermi also caught the outburst of gamma rays from a blazar called PKS 1441+25, so far from our solar system that it takes 7.6 billion years for its light to reach our planet. Its black hole is approximated to have 70 million times the mass of the sun.
